Cell Culture Media

Cell Culture Media Global Market Outlook:

• Cell culture media market is expected to grow at a fast pace along with the growing biopharma segment and the increasing need for vaccines to fight COVID-19

• Market has been dominated by the top three players like Thermo Fisher, Merck/Sigma and GE health care/Cytiva (Danaher) holding nearly 70 percent of the market share

• Companies like, Lonza, Himedia, etc., also operate in this space with very small market shares and cater to smaller volumes as compared to the major players

Cell Culture Media Market Overview

• The cell culture media market is expected to grow at a fast pace as long as there is growth in the biopharma manufacturing and contract manufacturing segment.

• The cell culture media market will reach a value of $3.6 billion by 2027 with a CAGR of between 8 and 9 percent from 2023 to 2027

• Media is one of the rapidly growing segments in the overall cell culture market. The increasing use of cell cultures in upstream bioprocessing has driven the demand for better-defined media

• The market is highly consolidated with Thermo Fisher holding nearly 30-40 percent of the market share and is even more competitive after the acquisition of Sigma by Merck

• Suppliers, like Thermo Fisher, Cytiva, and Fujifilm, are expanding capacities to meet global demand

Cell Culture Media Cost Structure Analysis

• Cost of chemically defined media is discussed below. This media does not involve the use of serum during manufacturing

• Like most commodities raw material cost contributes to the major portion of manufacturing. Powdered media is take as an example because it is a more traditional form of media and is widely used till date

• Raw Material Cost: The cost of media is impacted by the fluctuation in prices of raw materials such as glucose, lysine, sodium Chloride, etc. that go into its manufacture. The increase in cost of any of these raw materials will directly affect the cost of media

• Labor and Technology Cost: Adoption of latest technology into media production and spending on R&D to develop new products will also lead to increase in cost of the products. These are usually one time expenses, but the cost incurred by the supplier will impact the price of media.

• Warehousing and Cold chain Cost: The need for cell culture media products to be stored and transported in sterile conditions increases the cost of media products

Porter's Analysis on Cell Culture Media

Supplier Power

• Supplier power is low since most of the cell culture media manufacturers are backward integrated. Therefore, media manufacturers will not be focused on securing supply of raw materials.

Barriers to New Entrants

• Market being highly consolidated, new entrants may not have a fair opportunity in the market but new players with sophisticated technologies or innovative media can survive.

Intensity of Rivalry

• Top three players have considerable amount of market share and have intense competition among themselves. Therefore intensity of rivalry is considered to be high.

Threat of Substitutes

• Cell culture media is a basic component in bio manufacturing which cannot be replaced by any other component. Therefore threat of substitution is low.

Buyer Power

• Although there are limited players in the market. All the companies offer the standard set of media with little modifications. Thus, buyer power is medium

• With the onset of COVID-19 there is a lot of focus in supplying to COVID-19 vaccine and drug manufacturing

• Therefore, other buyers may not be given preference at this point